“I never made a secret of my attitude toward our president, always openly supporting him,” Alex Ovechkin wrote in an Instagram post voicing his support for Vladimir Putin.

3:18 PM ET

Greg WyshynskiESPN

Hello, and welcome to the WeeklyReader, which will run every Friday and collect news and views from around the hockey world on the week’s biggest stories. Seen something worth highlighting here? Hit me at greg.wyshynski@espn.com, or do the same if you have suggestions for the column going forward. Enjoy!

Having covered him for several years on the Capitals beat, I learned that Ovechkin has as fervent a patriotism as I’ve seen from a pro athlete.

Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin took to his Instagram account Tuesday to throw his support behind Vladimir Putin ahead of next year’s Russian presidential election.

The Blues have taken the lead in the latest Rankings, but close behind them are the Lightning and Kings. However, all three and the other 28 teams have a little something about them that has us worried.

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With this escalation, Ovechkin has a lot to answer for. He’s playing in Washington, D.C., and it’s not exactly glasnost between the U.S. and Russia these days. He’s supporting a world leader who has been accused of nothing short of crimes against humanity. He’s a professional athlete taking an overt political stance at a time when athletes who do so are skewered on social media at best, ostracized in the real world at worst. (Perhaps the best defense for Ovechkin against that demonization is Americans’ indifference to world news and foreign policy.)

Note what he told the Washington Post on Thursday night: “I don’t try to be politics man or someone like that,” Ovechkin said. “I just support my president and just support my country because I’m from there, and you know, if people from U.S. came to Russia, they care about what happening in U.S. So I care about what happening in Russia because that’s my home and that’s where I’m from.”

As he has in the past, Alex Ovechkin is seeking a separation between patriotism and policy. Can one really create a “social movement” for a politician while declaring he’s also not trying “to be politics man”?

MapleLeafs coach Mike Babcock has been feeling the heat since his young team fell back to earth following a blistering start. Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP

Look, Toronto is fine. The Leafs are young. They’re learning. They are still a top-10 team in possession despite an ongoing effort to find their defensive identity. If there’s any point of concern for me, it’s how pedestrian many of the players in Toronto’s bottom six have been, which is why depth on paper doesn’t always correlate to depth in reality.

Jersey Foul of the week

In fairness, when I’m writing Anthony Beauvillier’s name I usually nail the first couple of letters and then let God sort it out.

Carey Price is often portrayed as a helpless victim to the Montreal Canadiens‘ overall ineptitude, but let’s be real: He’s been absolutely terrible this season.

Carey Price, once the consensus best goaltender in the world, has struggled mightily this season for the Canadiens. AP Photo/Hannah Foslien

Price has an even-strength save percentage of .877 through 11 games and is 3-7-1, which is by far the worst for any goalie with more than seven starts. He’s 13th in low-danger save percentage (.982) for goalies with 300 minutes played. In goals saved above average — essentially, how many goals an average goalie would allow if he faced Price’s shot volume — Price is 30th in the NHL at a minus-9.5. Last season? He was fifth at plus-14.9 (via Corsica).

Quick question: When your team is down two goals at the San Jose Sharks with about 10 minutes to go in the third period, what’s the best decision your No. 1 center could make?

Is it staying on the ice and creating offense, as his new $64 million contract would indicate is in fact his task? Or is it to fight Joe Pavelski because “he didn’t like the hit” the Sharks center put on him, taking himself out of a potential rally for five minutes?

Asking for some friends in Nashville.

Selena Gomez’s deal with the Devils

It appears Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber might be reconciling, which is delightful news for fans of “his and hers” hockey jerseys. One recent sign: The time-honored tradition of the girlfriend wearing her boyfriend’s hockey sweater, which the New Jersey Devils seized on here:

Puck headlines

Dinamo Minsk had a great idea: Invite fans to dress up in Halloween costumes for a contest. Alas, many of those fans didn’t read the fine print that noted a KHL ban on “clothes and other means of concealing the identity, meaning that masks and make-up that make identifying fans difficult are not allowed.” Hence, why the police were so upset. [BBC]

In case you missed this from your friends at ESPN

Chris Peters released his Top 31 prospects ranking, with some very high praise for American defenseman Quinn Hughes: “Having closely tracked American prospects in particular for the past decade, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a U.S. defenseman like Hughes.”